"What we see is that the figures may be approcahing 150,000 dead. The vast majority of those are in Indonesia and Aceh, which is the least assessed area because of logistical constraints," Egeland told reporters.

"It may therefore raise further," he said.

"We will never ever have the absolute, definite figure because there are many nameless fishmermen and villages that have just gone -- and we have no chance of finding out how many they were," he said.